Lead nurturing is a crucial part of your marketing and sales success. Studies show that 50% of leads are qualified but aren't immediately ready to buy something from you [Source: Gleanster Research]. With lead nurturing , however, you can bring those leads through your sales funnel and garner 4-10 times the response rate compared to a regular email blast while doing it [Source: SilverPop/DemandGen Report]. To nurture those leads correctly, however, you need to somehow adjust your messaging based on their point in the sales cycle. But how do you do that? Understanding the Buying Cycle. MORE

In this age of inbound marketing, content is king. And all content, regardless of format—text, video, audio, presentation—begins with the written word. The ability to arrange words and phrases in ways that capture interest and compel action is a skill at a premium. But good writing isn’t easy. As Eric Siu noted recently in Is Blogging Dying? How does the pattern work? made that number up. MORE

by Joe Chernov | Tweet this You know the feeling: Just when you think you have something (almost) all figured out, someone goes and blows up your self-image. As the person responsible for Eloqua’s content marketing efforts, that’s how I felt when reading Altimeter Group’s latest research: Content: The New Marketing Equation. Turns out, however, illumination can be a very good feeling. MORE

Social media can be tricky. If you do a million things well, they may go unnoticed. But if you make just one bad mistake -- just one -- you can be the source of criticism for months, and maybe even years, to come. You'll probably even have quite a bit of crisis communication and damage control on your hands. Want to learn what to avoid before your company repeats history? How do you avoid this? MORE

Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events. Kacy Maxwell is a guy who loves his work, family and a good challenge. See more of his cartoons at EverythingIsMedia.com. humor {growtoons} kacy maxwell social media cartoon social media humor MORE

Stop me if this sounds familiar. You log in to your analytics program and poke around. The data is interesting. The charts are multicolored. And yet, at the end of looking around, you still don't know how to improve your marketing as a result. Been there? It's not that there's a right or a wrong type of analytics, but every company is different. before making a purchase. Image credit: [F]oxymoron. MORE

Lead generation and demand generation, although related, are at odds with each other. When many B2B marketers say demand generation, they mean lead generation, and the program will be measured on leads and the value of those leads. The problem is, one is focused on changing the audience’s perspective, the other is focused on capturing their information. MORE

A Twitter Q&A with B2B Marketing Professionals. Every Thursday night a bunch of really smart B2B marketers get together on Twitter to listen, learn, engage and chat on a specific topic. The best way to experience this is to participate live every Thursday from 8 to 9pm Eastern Timezone. You can follow along here and they also have a Linkedin group as well. But, in case you miss one the folks at B2B Marketing Asia , have curated some of the chats using Storify. Thanks for doing this! So, let’s see what they had to say about the perfect B2B marketing cocktail! b2bchat Blog Featured MORE

Pinterest has emerged as a social platform to watch as more businesses jump on board (no pun intended). It lets users organize things they find on the web by creating pinboards then “pinning” items onto boards of each corresponding category. My first thought upon learning about businesses trying Pinterest was that it’s a perfect platform for travel marketing since there are so many (independent and collaborative) components people consider when planning a vacation. Plus, so much of leisure vacationing is taking in scenery, so there is already a very visual association with travel planning. MORE

Image via Wikipedia. Yesterday, we talked about how Google might have cracked the code on qualified sales leads through search. Somehow, sites are seeing drops in traffic but not all of them are seeing commensurate drops in revenue, because Google is figuring out which keywords drive revenue for each site. So, the question is whether you know which keywords are driving your own revenue. No matter. MORE

eNewsletters are a great way to keep in touch with your client base and maintain “top of mind” awareness. If you’re not already sending one out on a regular basis, you really should be. But like any B2B marketing effort, a clumsy execution will do more harm than good. So how do you balance staying top of mind with not scaring off your subscribers? Do a test. Send out a survey. MORE

Some B2B marketers approach social media with shiny object syndrome and think it will solve all their company problems if they can only replace all their traditional marketing with social media marketing. That is a terrible idea. While I don’t subscribe to the marketing school of thought that encourages you to keep doing the things that you have always done because they have always worked in the past, I also don’t believe that you should throw out everything you are doing for the sake of change. Evaluate Existing Marketing. This is key to evaluating your tactics. MORE

We are all living the marketing high life. Today, great inbound marketers can transform their business thanks to “free” traffic and leads from social media and search engines. Sure, this traffic isn’t exactly free — marketers have to invest in time and tools to take advantage of these inbound channels. But inbound leads are still 61 percent less expensive than outbound leads. Can This Last Forever? This week, interesting monetization news broke about Pinterest, the hot new social network focused on images. News & Notes MORE

Imagine a late night of channel surfing. There's nothing worth watching so you stop to check out the latest gadget on the Home Shopping Network (HSN). And, in the right hand corner of your screen you notice that little black squiggly QR code. You've probably seen the codes on print ads and on product packaging, but this technology is a relative newcomer in TV advertising. The HSN Experiment. MORE

Why Customer Insight is King in B2B Marketing. The starting point for almost all B2B marketing initiatives involves gaining insight about the customer through surveys. Marketri clients are typically surprised when they get the survey results. What they thought was critical to their customers is oftentimes a “price to play” or simply not that important. How to Survey? What to Ask? MORE

In today's words of "never" wisdom, Lori Richardson , author of 50 Days to Build Your Sales and CEO of Score More Sales shares an invaluable lesson a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) taught her about email prospecting and email communications. number of years ago when I worked for a technology startup, I was communicating with a CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of a Fortune 500 company. Periodically I'd send him email messages regarding things that needed to get done to move the project forward. He had his administrative assistant take care of the first one -- only. This happened again. MORE

Your prospects love inbound marketing. But they don’t know it yet. This is because inbound marketing gives both you and your customers a great deal more than a conventional marketing strategy. Here are just some of the reasons that your customers – and your prospects – love inbound marketing: Your prospects want to be wooed. No-one likes the hard sell. MORE

CMOs feel largely unprepared for the challenges of today’s marketing challenges when it comes to the changing buyer, the corporate pressures to contribute and the skills and tools they have to work with. And yet much of the B2B Marketing conversation is still on generating leads. This is why I believe we have a leadership gap in B2B Marketing today. Change is coming to B2B Marketing. MORE

Pinterest has emerged as a social platform to watch as more businesses jump on board (no pun intended). It lets users organize things they find on the web by creating pinboards then “pinning” items onto boards of each corresponding category. Plus, so much of leisure vacationing is taking in scenery, so there is already a very visual association with travel planning. Dining. Shopping. Attractions. MORE

Here it is, only the middle of February and already I have one trade show under my belt. It was a great show and I have nothing but respect for anyone who bets the farm on a show in January in Canada. But sadly I don’t see hopeful signs that marketers and sales people are getting any better at these things. In fact, since my series of rants almost two years ago, I think things might actually be getting worse. So just in time for the Q2 show planning cycle, let’s recap Bizmarketer’s Top Ten Trade Show Tips. 1. Pick the right shows. Are you going to the same events year after year? MORE

by Jason Miller Last week I was interviewed by Demand Gen Report regarding the recent IPO filing by Facebook and how it’s going to affect the B2B marketers’ world. You can download the full report here.) I was thrilled to be a part of such an insightful feature and I wanted to expand on my thoughts since this could have major implications for B2B marketing. MORE

A list of tips for building a quality business Twitter following that I recently contributed to The CMO Site mentioned the value of being the eyes and ears of your followers. When you attend a conference, play reporter and tell your followers what you’re witnessing,” I advised. An experience from this morning demonstrates the value of what amounts to sharing notes you would probably take anyway. posted about 30 comments during the 90-minute session, mostly speaker quotes and summaries of what was being said. Within an hour after the event had ended I had 26 new followers. SMB26”. SMB26.”. MORE

Skyline Exhibits , a maker of tradeshow and event exhibits, held a webinar yesterday titled "What's Working in Exhibitiing", intended to give marketers advice for increasing the effectiveness of their participation in tradeshows. Below are some of the highlights from the presentation. How are Exhibitors Increasing Results? Pre-Show Marketing 26%. Selecting Shows and Spaces 23%. Exhibit Design 14%. Lead Management 12%. Booth Staffing 4%. How are Exhibitors Stretching Budgets? Exhibit Only at the Right Shows 29%. Booth Staffing Savings 23%. Save on Shipping 9%. Show Selection. Budgeting Cuts. MORE

By the time you have finished reading this, there will have been 37,349 new profile pictures on Facebook, 3,400 new connections added to your network, 15,654 publicly +1’s,8,700 new viral videos and approximately 1.2 million tweets. (**Editor’s Note: These numbers are completely fictional and used for dramatic emphasis, but I imagine that real numbers are similar.) Interesting things will be shared and pinned, blogs will be written and the amount of clout I carry will be graded on a daily basis. Would that count as a “Hot” MQL? MORE

This summary of Mad Marketing TV was created for the press. We wish to share it with you, as you may be unfamiliar with the show. Jeff Ogden. The host of Mad Marketing TV is Jeff Ogden , President of the B2B demand generation and global marketing firm, Find New Customers. What is Mad Marketing TV? What’s the goal of Mad Marketing TV? Who sponsors Mad Marketing TV? What do you think? MORE

Jeff Molander is a professional speaker, author of Off the Hook Marketing: How to Make Social Media Sell for You and adjunct faculty at Loyola University Business School. He blogs at www.offthehookblog.com and can be reached at jeff@jeffmolander.com. Why is it so difficult to generate actual leads and sales using social media in the B2B world? At risk of my wife divorcing me, I decided to take a year off and find out how those brands who were succeeding with social media were doing it. These Brands are Making Social Media Sell. This is How They're Doing It. What's their secret? Take Action. MORE

You may have seen yesterday’s announcement that Raab Associates’ marketing technology practice* has become part of LeftBrain DGA , an agencyspecializing in demand generation strategy and execution. My role at Left Brain will be to build the “optimization”practice, which means working on marketing analytics as well astechnology. I’m looking forward to deeper involvement in client marketing programs than the project-oriented work at RaabAssociates allowed. Left Brain’s readiness for an optimization practice reflects changes withinthe larger demand generation industry. It will be fun. MORE

Twitter has become one of the best ways to get company messages out and share valuable content. But how can you get the most out of Twitter? Jeff Ogden of the B2B demand generation and global marketing firm, Find New Customers , wants to share some new insights. The data shows that the best time to Tweet is on afternoons and weekends. But what are you to do – stay up all day and night? MORE

Lead generation and demand generation, although related, are at odds with each other. When many B2B marketers say demand generation, they mean lead generation, and the program will be measured on leads and the value of those leads. The problem is, one is focused on changing the audience’s perspective, the other is focused on capturing their information.

CMOs feel largely unprepared for the challenges of today’s marketing challenges when it comes to the changing buyer, the corporate pressures to contribute and the skills and tools they have to work with. And yet much of the B2B Marketing conversation is still on generating leads. This is why I believe we have a leadership gap in B2B Marketing today. Change is coming to B2B Marketing.

In this age of inbound marketing, content is king. And all content, regardless of format—text, video, audio, presentation—begins with the written word. The ability to arrange words and phrases in ways that capture interest and compel action is a skill at a premium. But good writing isn’t easy. As Eric Siu noted recently in Is Blogging Dying? How does the pattern work? made that number up.

Why Customer Insight is King in B2B Marketing. The starting point for almost all B2B marketing initiatives involves gaining insight about the customer through surveys. Marketri clients are typically surprised when they get the survey results. What they thought was critical to their customers is oftentimes a “price to play” or simply not that important. How to Survey? What to Ask?

Pinterest has emerged as a social platform to watch as more businesses jump on board (no pun intended). It lets users organize things they find on the web by creating pinboards then “pinning” items onto boards of each corresponding category. Plus, so much of leisure vacationing is taking in scenery, so there is already a very visual association with travel planning. Dining. Shopping. Attractions.

by Joe Chernov | Tweet this You know the feeling: Just when you think you have something (almost) all figured out, someone goes and blows up your self-image. As the person responsible for Eloqua’s content marketing efforts, that’s how I felt when reading Altimeter Group’s latest research: Content: The New Marketing Equation. Turns out, however, illumination can be a very good feeling.

Social media can be tricky. If you do a million things well, they may go unnoticed. But if you make just one bad mistake -- just one -- you can be the source of criticism for months, and maybe even years, to come. You'll probably even have quite a bit of crisis communication and damage control on your hands. Want to learn what to avoid before your company repeats history? How do you avoid this?

A list of tips for building a quality business Twitter following that I recently contributed to The CMO Site mentioned the value of being the eyes and ears of your followers. When you attend a conference, play reporter and tell your followers what you’re witnessing,” I advised. An experience from this morning demonstrates the value of what amounts to sharing notes you would probably take anyway. posted about 30 comments during the 90-minute session, mostly speaker quotes and summaries of what was being said. Within an hour after the event had ended I had 26 new followers. SMB26”. SMB26.”.

This summary of Mad Marketing TV was created for the press. We wish to share it with you, as you may be unfamiliar with the show. Jeff Ogden. The host of Mad Marketing TV is Jeff Ogden , President of the B2B demand generation and global marketing firm, Find New Customers. What is Mad Marketing TV? What’s the goal of Mad Marketing TV? Who sponsors Mad Marketing TV? What do you think?

Lead nurturing is a crucial part of your marketing and sales success. Studies show that 50% of leads are qualified but aren't immediately ready to buy something from you [Source: Gleanster Research]. With lead nurturing , however, you can bring those leads through your sales funnel and garner 4-10 times the response rate compared to a regular email blast while doing it [Source: SilverPop/DemandGen Report]. To nurture those leads correctly, however, you need to somehow adjust your messaging based on their point in the sales cycle. But how do you do that? Understanding the Buying Cycle.

25 B2B marketing thought leaders answer the question "What do you expect to B2B marketers to be doing more of or differently in 2016?" The results are amazing insights around content marketing, achieving business results, alignment, employee advocacy, new technologies, customer experience and more.

Some B2B marketers approach social media with shiny object syndrome and think it will solve all their company problems if they can only replace all their traditional marketing with social media marketing. That is a terrible idea. While I don’t subscribe to the marketing school of thought that encourages you to keep doing the things that you have always done because they have always worked in the past, I also don’t believe that you should throw out everything you are doing for the sake of change. Evaluate Existing Marketing. This is key to evaluating your tactics.

Why Customer Insight is King in B2B Marketing. The starting point for almost all B2B marketing initiatives involves gaining insight about the customer through surveys. Marketri clients are typically surprised when they get the survey results. What they thought was critical to their customers is oftentimes a “price to play” or simply not that important. How to Survey? What to Ask?

Pinterest has emerged as a social platform to watch as more businesses jump on board (no pun intended). It lets users organize things they find on the web by creating pinboards then “pinning” items onto boards of each corresponding category. Plus, so much of leisure vacationing is taking in scenery, so there is already a very visual association with travel planning. Dining. Shopping. Attractions.

by Joe Chernov | Tweet this You know the feeling: Just when you think you have something (almost) all figured out, someone goes and blows up your self-image. As the person responsible for Eloqua’s content marketing efforts, that’s how I felt when reading Altimeter Group’s latest research: Content: The New Marketing Equation. Turns out, however, illumination can be a very good feeling.

Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events. Kacy Maxwell is a guy who loves his work, family and a good challenge. See more of his cartoons at EverythingIsMedia.com. humor {growtoons} kacy maxwell social media cartoon social media humor

By the time you have finished reading this, there will have been 37,349 new profile pictures on Facebook, 3,400 new connections added to your network, 15,654 publicly +1’s,8,700 new viral videos and approximately 1.2 million tweets. (**Editor’s Note: These numbers are completely fictional and used for dramatic emphasis, but I imagine that real numbers are similar.) Interesting things will be shared and pinned, blogs will be written and the amount of clout I carry will be graded on a daily basis. Would that count as a “Hot” MQL?

You may have seen yesterday’s announcement that Raab Associates’ marketing technology practice* has become part of LeftBrain DGA , an agencyspecializing in demand generation strategy and execution. My role at Left Brain will be to build the “optimization”practice, which means working on marketing analytics as well astechnology. I’m looking forward to deeper involvement in client marketing programs than the project-oriented work at RaabAssociates allowed. Left Brain’s readiness for an optimization practice reflects changes withinthe larger demand generation industry. It will be fun.

In today's words of "never" wisdom, Lori Richardson , author of 50 Days to Build Your Sales and CEO of Score More Sales shares an invaluable lesson a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) taught her about email prospecting and email communications. number of years ago when I worked for a technology startup, I was communicating with a CFO (Chief Financial Officer) of a Fortune 500 company. Periodically I'd send him email messages regarding things that needed to get done to move the project forward. He had his administrative assistant take care of the first one -- only. This happened again.

by Jason Miller Last week I was interviewed by Demand Gen Report regarding the recent IPO filing by Facebook and how it’s going to affect the B2B marketers’ world. You can download the full report here.) I was thrilled to be a part of such an insightful feature and I wanted to expand on my thoughts since this could have major implications for B2B marketing.

Here it is, only the middle of February and already I have one trade show under my belt. It was a great show and I have nothing but respect for anyone who bets the farm on a show in January in Canada. But sadly I don’t see hopeful signs that marketers and sales people are getting any better at these things. In fact, since my series of rants almost two years ago, I think things might actually be getting worse. So just in time for the Q2 show planning cycle, let’s recap Bizmarketer’s Top Ten Trade Show Tips. 1. Pick the right shows. Are you going to the same events year after year?

Twitter has become one of the best ways to get company messages out and share valuable content. But how can you get the most out of Twitter? Jeff Ogden of the B2B demand generation and global marketing firm, Find New Customers , wants to share some new insights. The data shows that the best time to Tweet is on afternoons and weekends. But what are you to do – stay up all day and night?

We are all living the marketing high life. Today, great inbound marketers can transform their business thanks to “free” traffic and leads from social media and search engines. Sure, this traffic isn’t exactly free — marketers have to invest in time and tools to take advantage of these inbound channels. But inbound leads are still 61 percent less expensive than outbound leads. Can This Last Forever? This week, interesting monetization news broke about Pinterest, the hot new social network focused on images. News & Notes

Imagine a late night of channel surfing. There's nothing worth watching so you stop to check out the latest gadget on the Home Shopping Network (HSN). And, in the right hand corner of your screen you notice that little black squiggly QR code. You've probably seen the codes on print ads and on product packaging, but this technology is a relative newcomer in TV advertising. The HSN Experiment.

Stop me if this sounds familiar. You log in to your analytics program and poke around. The data is interesting. The charts are multicolored. And yet, at the end of looking around, you still don't know how to improve your marketing as a result. Been there? It's not that there's a right or a wrong type of analytics, but every company is different. before making a purchase. Image credit: [F]oxymoron.

Image via Wikipedia. Yesterday, we talked about how Google might have cracked the code on qualified sales leads through search. Somehow, sites are seeing drops in traffic but not all of them are seeing commensurate drops in revenue, because Google is figuring out which keywords drive revenue for each site. So, the question is whether you know which keywords are driving your own revenue. No matter.

eNewsletters are a great way to keep in touch with your client base and maintain “top of mind” awareness. If you’re not already sending one out on a regular basis, you really should be. But like any B2B marketing effort, a clumsy execution will do more harm than good. So how do you balance staying top of mind with not scaring off your subscribers? Do a test. Send out a survey.

Your prospects love inbound marketing. But they don’t know it yet. This is because inbound marketing gives both you and your customers a great deal more than a conventional marketing strategy. Here are just some of the reasons that your customers – and your prospects – love inbound marketing: Your prospects want to be wooed. No-one likes the hard sell.

A Twitter Q&A with B2B Marketing Professionals. Every Thursday night a bunch of really smart B2B marketers get together on Twitter to listen, learn, engage and chat on a specific topic. The best way to experience this is to participate live every Thursday from 8 to 9pm Eastern Timezone. You can follow along here and they also have a Linkedin group as well. But, in case you miss one the folks at B2B Marketing Asia , have curated some of the chats using Storify. Thanks for doing this! So, let’s see what they had to say about the perfect B2B marketing cocktail! b2bchat Blog Featured

Skyline Exhibits , a maker of tradeshow and event exhibits, held a webinar yesterday titled "What's Working in Exhibitiing", intended to give marketers advice for increasing the effectiveness of their participation in tradeshows. Below are some of the highlights from the presentation. How are Exhibitors Increasing Results? Pre-Show Marketing 26%. Selecting Shows and Spaces 23%. Exhibit Design 14%. Lead Management 12%. Booth Staffing 4%. How are Exhibitors Stretching Budgets? Exhibit Only at the Right Shows 29%. Booth Staffing Savings 23%. Save on Shipping 9%. Show Selection. Budgeting Cuts.

Jeff Molander is a professional speaker, author of Off the Hook Marketing: How to Make Social Media Sell for You and adjunct faculty at Loyola University Business School. He blogs at www.offthehookblog.com and can be reached at jeff@jeffmolander.com. Why is it so difficult to generate actual leads and sales using social media in the B2B world? At risk of my wife divorcing me, I decided to take a year off and find out how those brands who were succeeding with social media were doing it. These Brands are Making Social Media Sell. This is How They're Doing It. What's their secret? Take Action.

Pinterest has emerged as a social platform to watch as more businesses jump on board (no pun intended). It lets users organize things they find on the web by creating pinboards then “pinning” items onto boards of each corresponding category. My first thought upon learning about businesses trying Pinterest was that it’s a perfect platform for travel marketing since there are so many (independent and collaborative) components people consider when planning a vacation. Plus, so much of leisure vacationing is taking in scenery, so there is already a very visual association with travel planning.